One Last Time
by cherii tomato
Summary: Mikan thinks she's delusional. Mikan is positive she's seeing things. Mikan knows she's delusional. Or maybe not...


**Disclaimer: Mikan and Natsume belongs to Gakuen Alice. Gakuen Alice belongs Tachibana Higuchi. This storyline belongs to me. End.**

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::One Last Time::

by

::Madame Awkward::

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Five minutes were all I took to leave the dining room, trudge up the stairs to the study room to retrieve my reading glasses before returning to my seat where the papers are spread out in a complete mess on the table. A mug of coffee sitting quietly on the edge of the paper to prevent it form flapping about with a plate of scone beside it, both untouched.

Don't ask how I did it but I remember perfectly well how the dining room was before I left.

I guess five minutes are all it takes to add a man to the picture. Five minutes are all it takes for him to appear at my seat, newspaper in his hand and the mug of coffee in the other. He raises the edge of my mug to his lips, takes a sip and his face scrunches up immediately. He always does that after trying out the coffee I make. Placing the mug back onto the table, he picks up the scone elegantly and sinks his teeth into it, taking a large bite out of it. I observe as his jaw muscles move to chew the food before swallowing.

His head turns to look at me. My breath is caught in my throat when I see his face. I have to hold onto a wall so that I won't fall from my already weak knees. But not once did I break eye contact with him.

He is still the same as I last saw him, in a photo hung on the wall of our living room, the picture of him I want to remember in my mind. His raven hair that is similar to a pile of untamed grass; his two arches of eyebrows that are placed above his natural but highly unusual blood-red eyes; his roman nose raised up just slightly, enough for people to be intimidated just by his presence; the small concave in the distance between his nose to his lips are tugging at my heart; his lips are just like how I remember them, pink and moist. I know perfectly well how they will feel like on mine, soft, tender, sweet and love.

Gorgeous will never be enough to describe him.

He opens his mouth to speak and I feel the butterflies hitting against the walls of my stomach. "Your coffee is horrible."

Normally I would've given him a dirty look and slap his arm, though playfully. At this moment however, I'm just staring at him with my eyes wide, hot tears stinging my eyes. I feel a warm tear losing its balance at the corner of my right eye and fall from it, traveling past my cheek to my chin. Hearing him speak was too much.

He offers me a smile as he stretches out his arm and I can almost see them –firm and toned- beneath his black coat, beneath his purple shirt. His gesture is telling me to fall into his arms, and I know he would've caught me in the past. But I'm not so sure now.

My eyes travels back to his face and he has an eyebrow quirked. Being together for twelve years has taught us how to understand each other without the aid of words. He is asking me, 'what are you waiting for?'

I try to speak, but my mouth just won't move. It is still hanging slightly open from the shock of seeing him here. I want to walk over there to touch him, just to feel that he is real and not a figment of my imagination. But my legs are just as stubborn as my mouth, they refuse to move.

Truth is, the reason I can't move is partly because of my numbed-out motor nerves; another part is because I'm afraid that even with the slightest movement of mine will break this perfectness. The man I love so deeply sitting there, drinking to coffee and eating scones and now, holding out his arms to catch me. A scene that has happened so many times before, but never as significant as this.

As if sensing my difficulty, he rolls his eye –'you idiot'- and gets up from the chair to take three steps so that he can stand in front of me.

He looks at me with those smoldering eyes of his. Hands at his sides, head tilted just by a few degrees to one side, eyelids dropping low, his whole look would've screamed lazy, hunky ass to everyone else but to me, it is whispering heartbreakingly sweet familiarity.

He reaches out a hand to hold onto mine. At that interval between the reaching out of his hand and the second it touches mine, I am holding my breath and closing my eyes. Those seconds feel like days. I close my eyes tighter, bite my lips till a metallic taste of blood was on my tongue, clench my fist so hard till my joints hurt and my palm is in pain.

It is all like anticipating for our first kiss, though I know better.

Yet once the skin on the back to my hand feels his soft, feathery touch, I break out into a cry. The tears that are falling out of my eye sockets are not like those that were shed in the past few weeks. They are not tears of anger, not tears of despair, but of happiness, sheer joy. I open my eyes to see him smiling softly at me. That sight is all it takes to wrench my heart and make my tears fall in a larger quantity.

He continues to smile while I continue to cry as he tugs gently on my hand, urging me to follow him. We walk towards the chair. He sits down onto it and pulls me onto his lap, into an embrace.

I sit there unmoving for a short while. Finally, I regain my strength to wrap my arms around his neck and cry into it. His skin feels so warm, the arm around my waist feels so safe, the hand that is patting my back gently feels so comforting, the voice that whispers sweet nothings into my ears is so soothing.

Everything feels so real.

My tears gradually slow to a stop. When I pull away from him, I see him staring into my eyes. The reflection in his eyes shows a girl with a complete disheveled appearance. Her hair is unkempt; days of continuous crying result in her having puffed up eyes; her face is stained with streaks of tears. Most importantly, the life in her eyes is close to extinct.

He twists his lips disapprovingly as his fingers run through my hair, smoothing out any tangled strands. "What in the world did you do to yourself, beautiful?"

"You-How-But-Wait-You-" I try to think up a coherent sentence to tell him, but my mind just wont work properly. He smiles at my incapability to talk. But I know he understands. He always does.

"It's alright love." He whispers softly. Soft, but loud enough to break my heart all over again. "I understand."

"This can't be happening." I start to cry. This is all too surreal, this can't be happening. It must be my imagination. Imagination is always responsible for things that can't be happening, it is always blamed for things that are against the laws of Science, Physics and what-not.

He smiles sincerely again. "Stop smiling! Please! Stop smiling! You're killing me!" I am breaking down. I am falling apart again and it is his entire fault. I turn my head away, just so I won't have to see his face. Still, I can feel him. I can feel his warm body against mine; I can hear his soft and steady breathings; I can feel his heart going_ thump, thump, thump_ under my palm that is placed against his chest. For a moment there, I was going to believe that he is real.

I _was_ going to believe that.

He places a warm hand against my cheek and gently maneuvers it so that once again, I'm looking at him. He leans forward to place a soft, innocent kiss on my lips. Just the way I like it. Even now, he remembers I never really like tongues. My eyes flutter close.

We remain in that position for quite a while. His arms around me, my hands on his chest, feeling his heartbeat as our lips remained together. Just like I remember, his lips are tender and soft, providing me with all the love one could give. They taste like coffee and bits on scone are stuck onto his lips. I lick them away for him.

When we pull away, he looks at me with his crimson irises. How much I long to see them I front of me, alive again. Teardrops fall once more. He raises a hand to wipe them away; hurt is evident in his eyes.

"Mikan," he says. How much I long to hear his voice in person again. I cover my mouth with a hand as I cry. I can't, I can't lose him again. Not again.

I hold onto to his coat tightly as I bury my face into it, taking in his scent. "Don't go. Please! Stay! I beg of you, please! Stay!" I'm screaming, begging, beseeching for him to stay. "Please! Natsume! Please!"

Natsume closes his eyes for a quick second, long enough for me to catch a glimpse of a bead of tear on the corner of his eye. He reaches up his sleeve to wipe it away. Then, he looks at me again and places a hand behind my head to push my head towards him for him to place a loving kiss on my forehead. "Please, promise me that you will remember me."

I nod frantically, hoping, praying that this will make him stay. "Yes, I promise! Please, Natsume! Don't go! I love you! I love you! Please! Stay!"

"Please Mikan, let me go. Don't hold on to me forever, please."

"No, Natsume! No!" My heart is breaking again. I've finally found him, I can't let him go. "No, Natsume! No! We promise to have two children! A boy and a girl! Remember? Our wedding is next month! Please Natusme! I want to be your wife! Please! I want you to be my husband! I don't want to be anyone else's but you! Don't leave." My pleas comes out as groans, sobs, cries, croaks, weeps. If only they were strong enough to make him stay. If only they could change history; if only they could defy god's wills; if only they could bring back the dead.

If only.

Natsume gives me one last sad smile before taking a long breath from my hair. "Your smell is intoxicating, Mikan."

Just like that, I am once again alone in my dining room, holding onto the back of a chair with my dear life, tears wetting the cushion. For once after four years of living in this house, I feel the iciness radiating from the dining room. A room which was once our favourite. Silence is my only companion now.

A half-eaten scone is the only proof that he was here.

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Believe or not, this came to me when I was watching a comedy. And I was laughing. And then it came to me.

Btw, just do you know. Natsume is DEAD throughout the entire story. What Mikan saw was a ghost, a spirit of him.

**Review? Pretty please?  
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